


Mine

by cowboykylux



Series: Mind & Soul 'Verse [3]
Category: Marriage Story (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Worship, Canon Compliant, Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Oral Sex, Romance, Secret Relationship, Slow Dancing, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25551124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykylux/pseuds/cowboykylux
Summary: You were both so careful, you didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to ruin her life. You were so aware of it, so acutely aware of what you were doing, how objectively bad it was. It didn’t feel bad when you gasped underneath him. To Charlie, it felt like the most absolute correct thing there could ever be. That was the problem.
Relationships: Charlie Barber/Reader, Charlie Barber/You
Series: Mind & Soul 'Verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564099
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Mine

“Hey Charlie,” The bartender greets him when he steps out of the yellow taxi cab, “Your table’s all set up for you.”

The bartender’s having a smoke outside, barely visible in the dark of past-midnight as he’s leaned up against the old brick wall of the building.

Charlie stands in front of The White Lily, tips the cabbie before the car drives away. Tips the bouncer as he walks through the door, cuts in front of a long line of people. The bartender follows him.

“Thanks, is she here?” Charlie asks, attention zeroed in on finding you.

“Yep, already ordered your drinks.” The bartender replies, and Charlie tips him too. “’Appreciate it.” The boy says.

“’Course.” Charlie replies, grateful for the boy’s willingness to accept cash.

Can’t use the credit cards for anything – no record, no trace.

He hangs back a little, finally having spotted you. You don’t see him, gazing off into the distance somewhere. It’s dark in the club, nothing but soft neon lights filtered through a thick haze of smoke illuminate the space. He lights a cigarette, adds to it. It’s one of the last bars in the city that allows smoking.

The whole place looks like it never grew out of the 1940s, all the old fixtures and furniture kept in pristine condition. There’s a jazz band on stage, a four-man group that’s there every Friday when Charlie slips away from his life and meets you here.

You’re waiting for him, but not anxiously, he can tell.

He can tell by the way you’re sitting, how relaxed you are. Your head is leaned back, resting against the high-backed cushion of the booth. You’ve got a smile on your face, listening to the trumpet, soothed by it.

You look good, wrapped up in the brass music, golden notes kissing your skin.

He wants to kiss your skin.

He reveals himself to you, walks towards the booth and slides in right next to you.

Nicole never let him sit next to her, always had to be across. You welcome him with the brightest smile, arms already reaching to slip around his shoulders and hug him close.

“Hello handsome.” You can’t help but laugh, joy so clear on your face.

It hurts, how happy you are to see him. Reminds him that he could have had this for years.

“Hey gorgeous.” He smiles right back at you, his hands not wanting to let you go as he pulls away enough for you to shift yourself to face him, tuck yourself against his side. Your dress struggles to contain you as you do, as you cross your legs and lean into him. “Is this new?”

It’s beautiful, but then again, everything looks beautiful on you. The way the lights hit it makes you look ethereal.

“No, you just haven’t seen it in a while.” You laugh, sadness creeping into the corner of your eyes, your smile wavering, “You haven’t seen _me_ in a while.”

He admires you for a minute, simply rests his head against the cushion of the booth and looks at you, looks into those eyes of yours. He’s always blown away by what he sees, by how much you care for him. He’s thankful that you’re never jealous, just observant.

“I kept trying to get away.” He replies earnestly, and you duck your gaze just the smallest amount, collecting yourself.

He grabs a hold of your face and tilts your head back up to face him. He hates the wetness he sees in your eyes.

“You’re here now, that’s what matters.” You say, and he hears in your voice how you mean it, how you really mean it. “Are you doing okay?” You ask, and he doesn’t know how to answer that.

Was he? How could he be? With his life crumbling around him. It was time, it had been a long time coming, but the fallout wasn’t easy, wasn’t clean. He hated how messy it is.

He hasn’t seen Nicole in days, hasn’t seen Henry in just as long. The courts, they’re not being cooperative, the lawyers are vultures. He doesn’t remember ever yelling this much in his whole life, the way he yells when he’s home.

He can’t even call it home anymore.

Not anymore.

He takes a drag of his cigarette.

“No.” He says finally, says instead of all that. You hear it anyway.

You always hear him.

“Anything I can do to help?” You offer yourself for him, in that way you always do, selflessly giving and giving and giving yourself to him.

He’s so afraid to take advantage of you, but you let him, you beg him to. He’s never been very good at resisting you, resisting his feelings for you.

He doesn’t want to.

“Just let me hold you for a little bit?” He asks in return, a silent plea.

You know just the thing he wants, and you nudge his thigh with yours.

“Come, dance with me.” You say, “You can hold me all you’d like.”

He licks his lips, stands up and offers you a steadying hand so you can stand too.

You walk to the small dance floor, populated by couples who were escaping their own lives, living in their own heads as they swayed to the music.

Charlie wraps his arm around you waist, holds your hand in his as you lean your head against his shoulder. He’s got you so close, he can smell the way your shampoo curls in his nostrils. He brushes his nose along your cheek, kisses the shell of your ear softly.

It’s magic, the way he gets to hold you like this. He’s never held anyone like this.

Not like this.

He closes his eyes, sways along to the trumpet. He tries not to dwell on how lonely it sounds, how lonely he feels whenever he’s away from you.

You lift your head off his shoulder, and he rests his forehead against yours, noses softly touching as they slide against one another. Your lips are right there, his for the claiming.

He stops moving his feet, heart thudding in his chest. It’s always so risky, kissing you.

There’s always a chance, a chance you won’t want him anymore. A chance someone who knows him will see, a chance someone will tell. There’s a chance that this isn’t real, that this is just one big figment of his imagination as he’s laying in his cold empty bed on the other side of town.

Or even worse, as he’s laying in his cold bed with Nicole.

He takes the chance, kisses you anyway.

You’re real, you’re worth the risk.

He loses himself in the kiss, shudders against you, against your tongue. It makes his stomach swoop, like he’s free-falling. He wants to never do anything else, only wants to kiss you. Your eyelashes tickle his cheek from where they brush against him. He can feel you shaking.

He knows that you know it’s a risk too.

“Charlie, what are we gonna do?” You ask sadly when he pulls away just enough to breathe.

“She wants to move.” He says, making you freeze. “California.”

“And you?” You whisper, terrified for a moment.

“I’m staying here.” He says quickly, holds you. He only ever wants to hold you, to kiss you, “I’m staying with you.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, you know I can’t. I won’t.” You shake your head, and already he can feel hot tears sting at the corner of his eyes.

What a mess, what a fucking mess.

“I know, but you’re not. I know what I want, and it’s not LA.” He holds your face in his hand, kisses you again.

“They don’t have clubs like this, in LA, do they?” You ask against his lips, and he huffs out a laugh.

“No, they don’t.” He says, and you smile.

——————

Charlie takes you back to his apartment, calls for a cab and sticks his hand up your skirt the second he’s got you in it.

He fucks you until dawn, not that dawn was too far off to begin with. He’s drunk off the feeling of his own orgasm, drunk off of the feeling of your warm cunt around his cock.

He refuses to pull out of you for a long time, even after he’s come, even after he’s gone soft. He just can’t bare the thought of not being close to you.

You, thankfully, don’t mind. You’re more than content to have Charlie drape himself over you like a big sweaty blanket, an even pressure of his weight pressing you into the mattress.

“You okay?” You ask, when he’s gone silent.

He marvels at how you can always tell.

“I was just thinking…” He replies, finally pulling out of you and rolling onto his feet. 

“What about?” You wonder aloud as he snaps the condom off, ties it and drops it in the garbage.

“You – I’m always thinking of you.” He says, standing at the foot of the bed.

The sun has started to peek up above the horizon, golden light washing you. God you’re gorgeous, he thinks to himself as you sit up against the headboard, the covers pooling at your waist exposing your breasts to him. He counts the bruises and bite marks that litter your flesh, that mark you as his.

“Good thoughts I hope?” You ask, all of your sadness fucked right out of you, leaving behind the beautiful after-glow and that teasing, playful nature of yours that had made him fall in love with you all those years ago.

“Only the best.” He nods, makes his way back to the warm spot he left, climbs under the covers and settles between your legs, rests his head on your stomach. “Nothing but the best for you. It’s the least I can do, the least I can give you.”

“You don’t have to give me anything, I already take too much.” You say softly, carding a hand through his hair.

“You don’t take anything I don’t want you to have.” He shakes his head, kisses your stomach, props himself up so he can suck at your tits, your nipples.

You melt under him, slide back down so you’re flat on your back. He can already feel himself getting hard again – it was so easy to get hard for you.

“What about me were you thinking?” You ask, breathy moans as he lets his hand wander down to tease at your cunt, slow even strokes of his fingers. 

“Hm?” He asks, drunk, he must be drunk. His brain catches up to him, and he fingers you as he speaks. “You don’t look real, you’re too pretty. How are you so pretty? I’m afraid you’re gonna disappear into the sunlight and I’ll wake up and it’ll have all been just another dream. It’s like I’m seeing you in black and white – some old Hollywood star right in front of me. Like someone smudged the screen, turned all your edges soft.”

“I’m not gonna disappear, I promise.” You say, voice catching on a gasp as he curls his fingers and brushes them against your g-spot.

“Good, you can’t, not now.” Charlie whispers, kisses you as he fingers you, makes you cry from it, makes your thighs shake around him, “You can’t leave me now, not when I’ve finally got you.”

“Does she know?” You ask, and he sighs.

“No, I don’t think so anyway.” He says.

You were both so careful, you didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to ruin her life. You were so aware of it, so acutely aware of what you were doing, how objectively bad it was.

It didn’t feel bad when you gasped underneath him. To Charlie, it felt like the most absolute correct thing there could ever be. That was the problem. 

“You’re going to have to tell her eventually, you owe her that much.” You say anyway, and he nods.

“I know.” He replies, and you move on – for now anyway.

Your arms loop around his neck as he rubs steady circles on your clit, your chest heaving as you silently beg for more friction. He knows you won’t come like this, knows it’s only enough to keep your veins on fire, to keep the curl in your toes. He’s meticulous, knows what he wants.

He pulls his hand away all together.

“You know what my favorite version of you is?” He asks, and you blink up at him, hair fanned out across his pillow.

Is he dreaming?

“Hm?” You ask, frowning, wanting to come.

“You in the morning.” He says, “The way you hate the sun on your face, how you shy away from it.”

You hum and tuck your face behind one of your arms as the light dapples across your cheek – not even realizing that you’re doing it.

Your inner thighs are hot, wet, as your cunt drools for him.

“I love the way you laugh in the mornings, when the day’s bullshit hasn’t set in yet. It’s my favorite.” You say, simply because you can, because you can’t really think of anything else that isn’t _fuck me_.

“I only laugh in the mornings with you.” Charlie points out.

“When do you have to go to work?” You ask, wiggling your hips, and he rolls his eyes playfully, as if you’re the most demanding thing on the planet, as if it’s a chore fucking you.

It’s not, it never has been.

“Not for another hour, let me have breakfast?” He asks, already shuffling down the bed, kissing down your chest and stomach, tugging apart your knees and getting a mouthful of you.

“Mmmm.” You moan, finally satisfied as he spells his name with his tongue, wanting to own you even here.

He swallows you down, all the come that’s been waiting for him all night. He drinks you down, nudges his nose against your clit as you cry above him.

“Fuck, you’re so good.” He says against you, biting hard at your inner thigh.

“Yeah?” You gasp, a hand fisted in his hair.

“Best damn pussy I’ve ever had.” He says, and it’s the truth.

It’s the truth.

He eats you out until you’re coming for the last time, finally, finally gushing down his throat. He’s got fingers in you, pumping in and out, and when you’ve coated his whole mouth with your come and slick, he smears it against your thigh.

“Charlie!” You grin when he bites too hard, you pull away from him with a laugh.

“No get back here, you get right back here.” He laughs back, hooks his arms around your legs and pulls you all the way down the bed so you’re eye level with him, so he can kiss you. “You’re mine, you know that? All mine. Mine in the mornings, in the afternoon, at night. Mine when I’m at work and mine when I’m at home.”

“I’m yours, all yours.” You laugh, laugh and laugh, he kisses you all over, tickles you with them. You laugh like this is the most fun you’ve ever had. How fucked up is that? “Are you mine?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever belonged to someone the way I belong to you.” Charlie says, and though he doesn’t laugh when he says it, he means it.

He means it.


End file.
